The Community of BEING on Earth~Diana Fedora Tucci

DistanceIf we refuse the notion of awaycould we relearn the truth of far?We deny distance,​busy filling it with what we throw out of the car. Paving the house of Shiva with our shitScumming Poseidon's silver hair with tar​Fouling the coiled nest.Away is where we live and here is where we areA long distance from the nearest star

KinshipVery slowly burning, the big forest treestands in the slight hollow of the snowmelted around it by the mild, longheat of its being and its will to beroot, trunk, branch, leaf, and knowearth dark, sun light, wind touch, bird song.Rootless and restless and warmblooded, weblaze in the flare that blinds us to that slow,tall, fraternal fire of life as strongnow as in the seedling two centuries ago.

Poetry by Ursula Le Guin

BECOMING WITH:

Today's BECOMING WITH is an ode to the passive art of plants. What is art? Tolstoy states that art is communication. The art of plants, though, is not a communication but a reception, not an action but a reaction. If we believe that plants are not communicative then in order to understand their art we need to admit that ​we have not yet lifted our eyes to the vaster horizons before us. We have not yet delved into the depth and layers of these BEINGS. "Use your voice!" we say. But the plant's voice is sung through the lyrics of the lichen and the poetry of the rocks from which they sprang. Standing silent for centuries, the voice of every "other" lifts up the next and sings in community with all others including those that came before them. ​​Can we ever know this plant? Can we ever understand it? Our task, then, consists not of placing the onus on the plant to sing the same song that we sing or to sing louder and with more force as we do but to question the very foundation of our science of understanding and begin the journey of learning a new set of techniques for it seems that we are only at the beginnings of our age of discovery.

You have to respect a tree or hill or whatever it is you are with. Take a horn toad, for example, if you think you are better than a horn toad you'll never hear its voice. Even if you sit in the sun forever. Don't be ashamed to learn from bugs and sand and anything... Its good to walk with people but sometimes go alone that way you can always stop at the right time and listen. ~Byrd Baylor

True Story: Clay and tools were set out by educators as an invitation to play. The educators decided that the outcome of this play invitation would be that those that interacted with the clay via hands and tools would "make" something. By making they meant to utilize the tools to make in a linear sense as in creating some-thing or unmaking or dis-assembling it. Later on, during the reflection circle they noted that I had rolled up the ball of clay and neatly rested it back at it's starting point. As a reflection, they concluded that, 'some people make things and some people never make things.' That was their reflection and to that I say, YOU missed it. Please have a listen to the wisdom of others, the late, great Byrd Baylor and The Other Way to Listen.